Selling pianos with pictures : commercial art and keyboard instruments from the eighteenth century to the 1920s / Michael Saffle.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Saffle, Michael, 1946- author.

Contributor:

Rosengarten Family Fund.

Series:

Music and visual cultures ; v. 4.

Music and Visual Cultures ; volume 4

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Selling--Piano.

Selling.

Musical instruments--Marketing--Catalogs.

Musical instruments.

Keyboard instruments--In art--History.

Keyboard instruments.

Commercial art--History--Catalogs.

Commercial art.

Piano.

pianos.

Selling--Musical instruments.

Physical Description:

xv, 186 pages, illustrations (some color) ; 28 cm

Place of Publication:

Turnhout : Brepols [2021]

Summary:

Nineteenth- and early twentieth-century advertisements for pianos, pianists, merchants, music publishers and, above all, for domestic purchases are full of images employed for commercial rather than cultural purposes. This volume examines the commercial characters and significances of how pianos were pictured between the early days of 'modern' marketing to today. During the early 1920s, piano sales peaked in the United States; nevertheless, pianos have continued to be sold even as radios, record players, television sets and electric keyboards increasingly replace them as must-have sources of entertainment and improvement. The market for player pianos, although comparatively short-lived, also provided manufacturers and retailers with opportunities to depict pianos and pictures.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: ch. I Advertising, Iconography, and Secondary Sources of Information

Bibliographic sources

Previous studies of illustrated piano advertising

Especially useful previous studies

Additional studies

Musicological iconography and iconology

Iconography and advertising illustrations From analysis to synthesis: principles of advertising iconology

An iconological examination of twelve illustrated piano advertisements

Advertising as a professional activity, 1865-1920

Emerging attitudes toward commercial imagery Early advertising research and the importance of branding

ch. II Changing Attitudes toward Pianos and Pianists

Pianos as objects of admiration, denigration, and social cache

Women and keyboard instruments: traditional associations and early illustrations

Display, religion, respectability, talent, and `piano girls'

ch. III The Evolution of Illustrated Piano Advertising, 1770

1925

Early piano advertisements, endorsements, and testimonials

Words before pictures: eighteenth-century piano advertising Illustrated piano advertisements from the 1770s to the 1850s

Advertising pianos through correspondence, performances, and testimonials

Illustrated piano advertising comes of age, c. 1865

1910

Increasing prosperity and proliferating pictured piano ads Words vs. pictures in nineteenth-century piano advertising

Exhibitions, prizes, and illustrated piano branding

Pianos, pictures of buildings, and merchants' portraits

Twentieth-century consumerism and illustrated piano advertising

Buying `on time' and `at a distance': pianos and illustrated catalog advertising

Accessories, innovations, oddities, and novelties

Patriotic illustrations and piano advertising

Illustrated piano ads foregrounding children and their parents

Sheet music covers and pictured pianos

Concluding Observations

A synopsis of Illustrated piano advertising and advertising's emerging importance

The declining importance of pianos and the increasing popularity of phonographs, radios, other electric devices, and guitars.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Rosengarten Family Fund.

ISBN:

2503583571

9782503583570

OCLC:

1285362389